Bill Clinton Helping Obama With Campaign Strategy

Former President Bill Clinton may turn out to be current President Barack Obama’s most important supporter. It was Clinton’s suggestion that the Obama campaign stop portraying likely Republican nominee Mitt Romney as a flip-flopper and shift to portraying him as an extremist conservative, Politico reports. Clinton also is playing a key role as a fundraiser for the president.

For months last year, the Obama camp blasted Romney as having no core principals. But Clinton, whose view matched the data from Obama’s own pollster, Joel Benenson, gently let the Obama campaign know that it was missing Romney’s biggest weakness: “an embrace of a brand of tea party conservatism that turns off Hispanics, women and moderate independents,” Politico states.

Instead, Clinton advised the campaign to make use of Romney’s self-description as a “severe conservative,” three Democrats close to the situation told Politico.

“The decision here is that if you are going to pin a tail on the donkey, let’s make it the conservative tail,” a top Democratic strategist who supports the Clinton view told the news service.

On the fundraising front, Clinton will appear with the president at an April 29 event in Virginia and will also assist in bringing home the bacon for the struggling super PAC supporting Obama, Priorities USA Action.